Oxford History: The High

42: Vacant and 43: Simply Sewing

Nos. 42 and 43 are two shops in a timber-framed building dating from the sixteenth or seventeenth century (although the front was modernized in the eighteenth century). It is Grade II listed (List Entry No. 1047281) and was in St Peter-in-the East parish until that parish was united with St Cross parish in 1957.

The building is owned by The Queen’s College, and the back has been incorporated into the Queen’s Lane quad behind: this can be glimpsed through the gate between the two shops.

In 1696 Thomas Higgs paid tax on 14 windows of this whole house.

According to Salter, in the Survey of Oxford No. 42 was occupied by Mr Baylis and had a frontage measuring 4yd 1ft 7in, and No. 43 was occupied by Mrs L. Leaver with a frontage of 5yds 2ft 2in.

No. 42

In 1841 this shop appears to have been occupied by the tailor James Leech, his wife Martha, Elizabeth Leaech, who was probably his mother, and two lodgers. .

At the time of the 1861, 1871, and 1881 censuses, James Hervey Hill, the chemist in this shop, lived upstairs with a housekeeper.

In 1901 the chemist Herbert Gunstone who had the shop below lived in the eight rooms over it with two servants. He was still there in 1911, aged 38, with one servant.

No. 43

In 1841 this shop appears to have been occupied by the cutler Charles Chadwell, his wife Maria, and their children Ferdinand (7), George (6), William (5), Maria (3), and Eliza (1), plus their female servant and another family that was lodging with them.

Mary Bellamy, a widow
of 50 and the bookbinder here, was living over the shop at the time of the 1851
census with her five sons, of whom three were bookbinders and the other two at
school. She was still here in 1861, when she was described as a “bookbinder
& stationer employing 7 men, 5 women, & 4 boys”, and again in 1871.

At the time of the 1881 census, the bookseller Charles
Bacon lived here over his shop with his wife and six children.

In 1911 Miss Caroline Allen (40), a university lodging house keeper, spent census night alone in the nine rooms over this shop.

In 1871 there were seven households here in apartments numbered 1–7 Fidler's Court, while Hannah Quarterman, a lodging house keeper, was living at what was described as No. 44A
with her two daughters,
a domestic servant aged 15, and just two lodgers.

The
Sanitary Inspector’s report on the Link Lodgings in 1885 stated:

“This is an old
lathe and plaster house in fair repair. The rooms are well lighted and ventilated
except the Kitchen. The top landing is well lighted and ventilated but the lower
passages are dark. The WC is situated in the hall and is well lighted and ventilated
and the apparatus is good being a shorthopper well flushed from a waste preventer.
The drain is ventilated by a 3 inch pipe. The Scullery sink is not trapped or
properly disconnected. The Kitchen and scullery are both dirty and the Kitchen
is not ventilated.”

In 1886, when the landlord of the Link
Lodgings was Norman E. Minty (the cabinet maker at Nos. 44 and 45), most of the
rooms were converted into business premises, although two sets of rooms continued
to be licensed to be let at rents of 28s. and 23s. per week.

In 1881 the
Link Lodgings at 42 were occupied by an unemployed college servant, his wife,
six children, and a housemaid.

Charles Bacon, a bookseller, operated from
both Nos. 42 and 44 in 1876, presumably from the ground floor of the Link Lodgings
behind Nos. 42–45.